Cub Nation Baseball

6-3 Mariners Baseball Game

Baseball is an Interesting Game

From the Mariners website:

Ichiro gets nicked: Third base coach Jeff Newman nicked Ichiro Suzuki's cheek while hitting fungoes during batting practice on Thursday. Ichiro has a red spot on his right cheek to show for the close encounter, for which both parties tried to take the blame.

It could've been a lot worse, though, as Ichiro knows all too well.

"Once, when I was in the Minor Leagues in Japan, I had a coach break a bat over my head," Ichiro said through an interpreter. "The bat actually broke, but I was OK."

Ichiro, who was not wearing a helmet at the time, said he got in trouble for throwing one-hoppers while playing catch with a veteran outfielder. He did not want to throw the ball over his head and force the older player to chase after it.

"The coach told me not to do that," Ichiro said. "He saw me do it again and he hit me over the head with his bat. At that point, you couldn't even say it hurt. You just go on."

Wow. Can you imagine what it would've been like if the incident had occured over here? I mean.. a minor league coach breaking a bat over the head of some poor kid? That makes Kenny Rodger's assault on hobbit cameramen look tame.

Another convincing win yesterday, Moyer's 200th. I'm not really a milestone sort of person, but hey, good on the guy, he already has as many wins as Mariners pitching MVP Ron Villone did last year.

Winn needs to keep this up, so he has some trade value - nothing against Winn personally, but I really would like to see what Snelling can do. And Bloomquist is scaring me. I'll say no more.